Brocken Labor

Rarely do I hate a toy. I can usually find some redeeming value in most every toy I get, or be able to find some reason why one type of collector would want it. You have to respect, at the very least, the work someone put into making the item in question.

That is unless the person put in charge of the toy was HITLER.

That’s how I feel about the CM’s Mechanical Action Series Brocken Labor (OVA VER). I feel as though Hitler came back from the dead, or maybe possessed the soul of a designer over at CM’s while making this toy. One would think that any toy would go through SOME sort of review process before making it to market, but apparently this one got out of the factory and into stores without one competent person looking at it. It fails on almost every level.

The thing that kills me is that I should have known. After the debacle that was the AV-0 peacemaker, I just should have stayed away. Then this came in a box of samples, and I figured I would give it another try. I mean, they had to have learned some kind of lesson from the first one, right?

Not only did they not learn a lesson, I think they actually made a crappier toy.

The idea behind the MAS is a sound one. Make cheaper toys of less important characters that are in scale with those that got the Brave Gokin treatment. With the proper material and construction, this would not have been a bad idea, as each of CM’s Brave Gokin releases is great.

Each item in the line (at least the Patlabor ones) is made out of heavy, doughy PVC with a common joint system and cloth joint covers. Think of it as an oversized Revoltech, but none of the joints can hold any weight. Each joint is just too small.

Lifting the toy out of the tray for the first time, the legs and an arm just fall off. They aren’t broken, they just disconnect. Repeatedly. Get one leg on, the other falls off.

A tried-and-true method to tightening up loose joints is to put clear nail polish on each joint, let it dry, and reassemble. I took the entire figure apart and coated the joints.

Some joints are hidden behind cloth sheaths, so they are inaccessible. That does not keep them from disconnecting. At times the shoulder will disconnect, looking like someone just broke a bone beneath the skin. The cloth is glued to the parts, so if you just can’t get the part to stay, you will inevitably tear the arm off in frustration.

The nail polish does little to tighten the joints. The arms and legs are solid PVC, which can get quite heavy. Each is molded out of two solid parts that are glued together, with obvious seam lines and glue spots.

The parts finish is a matte red, which apparently picks up every bit of oil from the Chinese factory workers. Out of the box, it looks like crap.

Wait, the suck does not stop there. The Brocken Labor comes with a set of optional armor parts that has its own share of crappiness.

The part that connects around the chest looks like it was not sprayed all the way, with missing paint on the back.

Probably the most frustrating parts were the shoulder armors. Instead of clipping OVER the existing armor, you have to replace the parts. Of course, they are on tight, so you will without a doubt dislocate the cloth-covered joint, or even worse, tear the arm right off, like I did.

There’s an alternate head cover that is hard to get on, and when it is on, looks like a German WWII SS robot soldier. See, I told you – HITLER.

All of these things make me rage to no end. What makes it worse is that I actually really like the design of this thing.

If it were done in metal and constructed properly, it would be a FANTASTIC toy, but like this, I just want to feed it to my dog.

I would recommend you stay away from this toy at all costs. It’s a nightmare.

Oh, the irony is not lost on me that it is called “Brocken Labor”, which is close enough to Broken Labor.